{"id":250778,"date":"2021-08-08T15:46:48","date_gmt":"2021-08-08T20:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=250778"},"modified":"2021-08-07T02:28:59","modified_gmt":"2021-08-07T07:28:59","slug":"determined-mom-medical-breakthrough-down-syndrome","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/determined-mom-medical-breakthrough-down-syndrome\/","title":{"rendered":"Determined mom makes medical breakthrough for children with Down syndrome"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A mom of a child with Down syndrome says she was repeatedly ignored by doctors as her daughter struggled with her health, before she solved the medical mystery on her own.<\/p>\n

Austin Carrigg’s daughter, Melanie, wasn’t reaching developmental milestones like other children with Down syndrome. She never learned to hold her head up or sit on her own, both things that children with Down syndrome are expected to do. Yet doctors told Carrigg the reason was simply because of Melanie’s Down syndrome.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember taking her to a developmental pediatrician and saying, \u2018I know something is very wrong and we\u2019re here to see you because you\u2019re the type of doctor who helps us figure out why she\u2019s not meeting her milestones,\u2019\u201d Carrigg told TODAY<\/a>. \u201cHe said to me, \u2018She\u2019s never going to walk. She\u2019s never going to talk. I never need to see you again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Mother-daughter business owners show others with Down syndrome that no dream is too big<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Yet Carrigg knew something else was wrong, especially as Melanie’s condition worsened \u2014 she slept all day, and then started getting sick. \u201cShe had thrown up once and then we couldn\u2019t wake her,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen we could rouse her she would fight us. She was hitting and, like, pulling away. So we rushed to the ER.”<\/p>\n

Things were so bad that Melanie was in a coma, brought on by low blood sugar and high ketones. When they got home, Carrigg continued to look for answers, and finally received a referral to a metabolic geneticist. There, she got the answers she’d been desperately searching for: Melanie had ketotic hypoglycemia, a medical condition that causes low blood sugar and ketosis.<\/p>\n